Sit on a log by the Madidi River in Bolivia at dusk and you can hear what an Amazon forest should sound like. …This is what scientists call an “intact forest landscape.” …Because of their size, these areas have maintained all their native plant and animal life and biophysical processes. …In the tropics, intact forests hold 40 percent of the aboveground forest carbon even though they make up only 20 of those latitudes’ forests. And intact forests have been shown recently to absorb enough carbon to offset many Amazon countries’ (like Peru) total emissions. When forests become fragmented, edge effects (forest damage at created edges), drying and fire cause over 150 million tons of annual emissions — more than result from outright deforestation. …How will we pay for a future with forest wilderness? Part of the answer lies in programs to avert climate change.